


That's The Truth

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [293]
Category: DCU
Genre: Feelings, First Kiss, First Time, Love Confessions, M/M, Tongue-Tied Clark, Top Bruce Wayne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-18 19:09:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20196631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: “I can’t lie to you. You’ve always seen through me.”“I don’t know about that.”Clark looked up from his folded hands. “I do.”





	That's The Truth

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: I can’t lie to you. You’ve always seen through me. Prompt from this [generator](https://colormayfade.tumblr.com/generator).

“I can’t lie to you. You’ve always seen through me.”

“I don’t know about that.”

Clark looked up from his folded hands. “I do.”

“To be fair,” Bruce said, “it’s not like you lie a lot. There was a time when I thought it pained you to just stretch the truth.”

“There probably was. My mom and dad were pretty particular about that, growing up.”

“I’ll bet.”

They were sitting in the quiet darkness of the Cave. Bruce was drinking whiskey. Clark was not. It’d been a hell of a night.

“The funny thing is,” Clark said, “that it’s pretty easy for me to lie to myself.”

Bruce chuckled and stretched out his legs. The shadows agreed with him; Clark never saw him as at ease as he seemed to be when bathed in shades of black and gray. “That I can’t help you with, I’m afraid. Not a mind reader. And I’ve been known to dabble in self-delusion from time to time.”

“But lying doesn’t bother you.” Clark was tap dancing for time, and he knew it. “I mean, that’s always been my impression, generally speaking. If a lie will get you farther than the truth, you’ll do it, right?”

“I’ve spent a lot of my life in the gutter, Clark. The noble light of truth doesn’t burn very brightly down there.” Those dark eyes on him, searchlights. “But you didn’t come by to talk about philosophies of falsehoods, did you?”

“Uh,” Clark said. “Not exactly.”

“Mmmm,” Bruce said. He pitched forward, his glass catching the dim lamps high above them. “So. What in the hell have you been lying to me about?”

His throat closed. Good Lord, this was even more difficult than he’d thought. What in the world had possessed him tonight? What’d made this--the Cave, Bruce back in his civvies, his sleeves turned up and his face whiskey relaxed--seem like a good idea? Yes, Bruce had turned to him in the midst of a melee and growled: “Jesus, Kent. What’s eating you?” but there was no law that said he had to answer the man’s question tonight, if ever, and yet he’d followed the jet back to Gotham without thinking and waited while Bruce showered and changed and any notion he’d had that striking while the iron was hot would make it any easier to say what he was feeling were long, long gone.

Bruce took a long sip and raised his eyebrows. “Kent?”

“Bruce, I, er--”

There were words there, darn it. He’d rehearsed them in his head on the trip home. Heck, he’d thought about them, about some version of this scene, for weeks--ever since he’d finally let himself understand why his eyes went to Bruce first in a room, no matter who else was in it; why he dreamed of Bruce’s mouth on the back of his neck, smiling, biting; why the sight of Bruce’s blood--and worse, his stubborn refusal to take it seriously, to do anything that might acknowledge his own frailty--made him feel so very afraid. 

_ I care about you_. Too vague.

_ I have feelings for you_. Which ones, exactly? 

_ Bruce, my friend, it’s the strangest damn thing: despite your tendency to snarl and your fondness for making everyone around you uneasy--apparently, I love you. _

That would probably work. But only if he could manage to pry the words out.

“Bruce, my--uh.” He swallowed. “Good grief, I want to say that I...um?”

Bruce tilted his head; the corners of his mouth tilted to. “Oh, fuck,” he said softly. “Is that all?”

“What?”

And then Bruce’s hands were reaching for him, that big body pitched out of the shadows and pulling Clark to his feet in the full circle of light. “Seriously,” he said, his nails scratching at the back of Clark’s neck, his head tipped back, his lips parted. “You took your time about it, didn’t you? Faster than a speeding bullet, my ass.”

“Oh,” Clark said the split second before their mouths met. “Oh, _wow_.”

*****

“How long?” he asked later, much, when they were wound together in Bruce’s big bed.

Bruce grunted. His fingers found the damp of Clark’s hair. “How long what?”

“You know. Wanted to, ah. Do this.”

“You can say the word _ fuck_, Kent. I now know this. I’ve heard it.” A sharp, pleasant tug. “And at a very impressive volume, might I add.”

Clark’s hips hitched. “Don’t gloat.”

“I’m not gloating. I’m simply stating the facts. Telling the truth, if you like. Well.” Bruce chuckled. “It happens to be a truth that I like.”

“Good Lord, you’re going to be impossible about this, aren’t you?”

Bruce’s lips found his chin, the turn of his jaw. “Not unless you want me to be.”

Clark caught his head and held it. Stared into those smiling, sated eyes. “Honestly,” he said, “I like you the way that you are, Bruce. I don’t want to tell you how to be.”

“I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“Really?”

A sound like a tiger and then Bruce was on top of him again, grinning, his arms pinning Clark’s above his head. “Look at me,” Bruce hummed. “Would I lie to you, sweetheart?”

Clark raised his head for a kiss and Bruce let him take it. Another. “I hope not.”

“Not about anything that matters, I promise.” A twist of his hips, a heady brush of their cocks. A whisper: “You and me, Clark, hmm? That’s the truth.”


End file.
